A SOLICITOR has been fined after authorising a payment of nearly £70,000 to a fraudster.

Richard Gouldsborough, who was working at Woodhall Solicitors on Keighley Road, Bradford, at the time must pay £3,000 following an investigation into his conduct by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

A ruling by the SRA says the solicitor was the fee earner undertaking a commercial property sale for a client ‘Mr H’. The buyer, ‘Company N’, was represented by another firm.

It says: “Mr H provided bank details to the firm, not in his own name but that of a third-party company. There is no evidence that Mr Gouldsborough made any enquiries into the identity of the third-party company.

“The sale contract said that the deposit monies were held by the seller as agent.”

The ruling says the firm received the deposit money from the buyer’s solicitor and on February 26 last year, Gouldsborough requested one of the firm’s directors transfer the deposit to the seller.

On that same day, the firm transferred the deposit of £67,857 from the firm’s client account to the third-party company’s bank account.

“Soon after, it transpired that the Mr H who instructed the firm was a fraudster, impersonating the real Mr H,” says the ruling.

The ruling says Gouldsborough admits he “has failed to conduct ongoing monitoring and sufficient scrutiny of the transaction” and the SRA says the “breach is serious and caused harm to the seller who lost their deposit at the time (with those monies not being refunded by the bank until over one year later)”.

It adds: “By way of explanation, Mr Gouldsborough states that: this is an isolated incident that does not form a pattern of misconduct; he accepts that he made a mistake, which was an oversight on his part; he suffered from Covid a week prior to the incident and states it is likely he was still recovering at the time; customer due diligence was conducted; however, the fraud was sophisticated.”

The SRA said there is a low risk of the same thing happening again and insight and remorse had been shown, but there is a need to highlight the risks.

Gouldsborough, who now works for another firm, has agreed to pay £1,350 costs.

Lubna Khan, his former colleague, was rebuked by the SRA and agreed to pay costs of £600 after admitting to making the payment to a third-party bank account unrelated to the transaction.

The SRA said it did not form a pattern of misconduct and she has assisted in the recovery of the buyer’s losses.

Following the SRA ruling, the solicitors' firm struck a positive tone in a comment issued to the Telegraph & Argus.

A spokesperson said: "Woodhall Solicitors are pleased with the outcome as the fraud in question was detected at the material time.

"The team at Woodhall Solicitors were praised for their good practice in stopping a property transaction from completing and the full deposit was recovered.

"Woodhall Solicitors has proven their policies and procedures are robust and the above is an example that staff including Lubna Khan will go above and beyond to protect client money."